In the photographic, television and cinematographic field, the use of supports such as tripods, stands or suchlike for the adjustable support of filming devices is widely known.
In this technical field, the said supports comprise a crosspiece to which are connected in a known way three or more telescopic legs and a column which can slide axially in a tube within the crosspiece. A plate is fitted to the top of the column in order to anchor the supported device. The mechanism that connects the legs to the crosspiece enables them to be locked at different opening angles while the axial sliding of the column inside the tube of the crosspiece enables convenient height adjustment of the equipment.
Against the greater convenience of use afforded by such height adjustment, the main drawback resulting from the above-described technical solution is the interference between the section of column protruding beneath the crosspiece and the resting surfaces of the support that prevent the video-photographic equipment from being positioned at a very low point, for example in order to take shots at levels close to the ground.
Various mechanisms are known that have been built to tackle this problem. Two of them are described in EP0751338 and WO2005114037 respectively. In both of these documents, the sliding column comprises an upper part, connected to the plate, and a lower part that can be removed if low shots are to be taken.
As regards the structure of the supports defined in the said two solutions, the possibility of reducing the minimum height of the support itself is, however, limited by the fact that part of the column is replaced by a shorter part, but the column is not completely eliminated. These supports too are therefore unsuitable for extremely low set-ups.